Still there

The Ural Owl was back in its hole in Omuma and the Pacific Diver was still in its port east of Hakodate..................


Another nice springlike day on Monday saw us on the eastern coast. We went to Sawara, nothing around except for a few early Skylarks, another sign of spring.

The day was tinged with sadness: one of the local bird photographers had passed away a couple of days earlier. He lived very close to the grasslands at Sawara and was very helpful when the Gyrfalcon was present there a couple of winters ago. He arranged to have the dirt track cleared of snow (nobody could have driven in it other wise) and regularly drove us over the sand dunes in his big 4WD when our small car was not up to the job..................I hope there are some Gyrfalcons for Koizumi-san to photograph wherever he is now.

In addition to the Skylarks at Sawara we also saw Oriental Turtle Dove and Mandarin Duck at Onuma. the latter is very shy in Hokkaido, BIF record shots were all I could muster today.

The Pacific Diver is clinging on, its wing is still damaged but it swam out of the port to the sea.............

We finished the day in Kamiiso, here's an unusual gull of no fixed species. A Tamiyr Gull. It's an intergrade between Vega and Heuglins Gull. I see a few every winter, maybe one day I can add it to my J-list..............